April 13, 2025
Ollie was excited to ask Brydon to check the chickens for new eggs this morning but there were none to collect. Ollie learned they were gifted a handful of chicks recently and one, surprisingly, was a boy chicken. We’ve heard the rooster crow in the morning but thankfully not before 6am. Len also checked his squirrel trap but sadly it sat undisturbed.
Brydon made a fresh juice with the caviar lime this morning— also apple, ginger and cucumber. Kyle and I loved it but it wasn’t the boys’ favorite. He also brought a banana bread from a nearby bakery and that was a huge hit with us all. He recommended a hike nearby that the boys would be able to do. He also gave us an insider tip of doing the hike backward to avoid descending down the path with the majority of the loose rocks.
We then knocked out a homeschool session. Ollie wrote a letter to his friend and read some books on spiders and whales and Len keeping at it with reading, practicing words and iPad math games.
Before leaving the house, we played a few games of ‘hide and seek, rugby style’. Len invented this game and thankfully it doesn’t involve any tackling but instead hiding the rugby ball somewhere in the house or on the grounds and then the seeker must find the ball instead of a person. Len hid it in a bathtub and on finding it, Ollie saw two crickets in the tub. Ollie then scooped them with his bare hands and threw them out the window.
We had lunch nearby at Rambling Rose to fuel up for the hike. We’ve felt obtuse lately as to what day of the week it is and were reminded it was a Sunday as the restaurant was packed with weekend travelers and people enjoying a leisurely lunch. The boys were disappointed we forgot Uno at home but Kyle and I were even more disappointed as service today was quite slow and the boys were extremely antsy.
The hot chocolate obsession continues but in typical 4 year old style, Len hardly sipped his today. Kyle had a seared tuna steak with a super spicy pineapple salsa that he loved. Rambling Rose offers takeaway rotisserie chickens that we’re considering for dinner tomorrow night.
Before we started the hike, Ollie and I found some wild onions growing by the road side. The boys were excited to pick more but we encouraged them to instead leave the onions for other folks to pick and actually use.
We drove 5 minutes to the trailhead for Aasvoëlkrans Hiking Trail (Vulture’s Rock). The hike was just a 1.5 mile loop but with the climb and descent we anticipated it would take us 2- 2.5 hours and our prediction was nearly spot on.
Len led the climb, we were loaded up with snacks and finally remembered to pack our mini first aid kit. We took Brydon’s advice and did the hike counter clockwise. He recommended that the boys pick out special hiking sticks from the stockpile at the house and Kyle and I joked that he must not have kids because he would have known that to be a terrible idea. We did let the kids pick sticks and pack them in our trunk but we then ‘forgot’ the sticks in the car.
We made it to the top in about an hour and a half and were rewarded with a great view of the town of Montagu. We tried finding our house from the top but no one in the group had adequate eyesight to distinguish it from the others. When we got home we realized the house also has a thatched roof which is not what we had been looking for.
Our only critter sighting was another black and yellow garden spider towards the ends of the hike. Kyle saw the spider catch a bug and eat it but me and the boys missed out on that theatre. We had picked up another batch of the huge marshmallows before leaving Cape Town and brought those out as hike rewards today. Both boys had a few slips and scrapes from this hike so despite it being on the shorter side, it was one of the more emotionally taxing ones we’ve done. “Worst hike ever!!” was proclaimed a few times during the descent on some slippery loose rocks.
We ended the night at home by giving the boys a bath in one of the big bath tubs which they love. They also love that the house came with robes for them to wear and dance around in. Dinner was takeaway steak and escargot for Kyle and simple noodle soup and fruit for me and the kids. My stomach has been off so I haven’t been an adventurous dining partner for Kyle the past few days but am finally feeling on the mend. The kitchen is quite dark and moody at night and the groundskeeper, James, gave us a jump when he entered to close the shutters for the evening.
